Muzaffarnagar: Riot victims refuse to return to villages

Muzzafarnagar: More than 180 families, which were displaced in last year’s riots, have refused to return to their villages in neighbouring Shamli district.

A team of the forest department had gone to the riot victim camps and appealed to the families to return to their native places as they had illegally established temporary shelters on forest land but they refused to go, forest department official H V Girish said.

While 55 families are camping in Malakpur, 45 in Noorpur, 35 in Khurgan, 25 in Sunheta and 20 in Akberpur in Shamli district.

The forest department had earlier also issued notices to these families to vacate the government land.

Over 60 people were killed and thousands of others displaced in the communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and surrounding districts in August-September last year.